Right now, Colorado is split right down the middle between Obama and McCain. It’s a dead heat at 44% of voters each, which is why Palin was in Englewood the other day accusing Barack Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists,” the best evidence she has of which is the fistbump Obama once gave his wife and the fact that Obama barely knows some guy who did something when Obama was, like, 8 years old.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all, of course, and right now I’m not sure there’s anyone in America more desperate than the two people on the GOP ticket.

I get people who support John McCain, though, I’ll admit. I did once, too, long, long ago before he let Bush win the GOP primary back in 1999. Before then, I would have said he seemed like a good guy, and I’d like to see him come along after Bill Clinton. The world would be a much different place if we were currently ending a McCain administration instead of a Bush administration, and I’d wager, in fact, that alternate history wouldn’t have led us to such a bleak and very real present, with its economic crises, illegal espionage, and unjust wars. Back in 1999, McCain seemed like the kind of guy who would have told the world on September 12th, 2001, that we had been struck by terrorists and would respond swiftly and surely, and then, you know, responded to the right country.

But that’s not who John McCain is anymore. He’s erratic. He seems to want to believe that America can restores its international image simply by bombing more countries. He doesn’t understand the economic crisis, not in any real way; no one who would lose track of the number of houses his family owns could really grok the mortgage crisis.

So I get people who support him, I think, because they’re supporting who he used to be rather than what he’s done since and what he’s running on, now, and really, who wouldn’t like to go back to 1999? Well. Okay, I wouldn’t, but 2000-2001 would be nice, certainly. I’d dig it.

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

Saw most of the debate last night, but gave up on it after a while. I felt like I was just sort of cheering for the side I’d already chosen. One thing I’ve noticed this election cycle is a difference I perceive in the way the different parties seem to be voting. To wit: it seems to me that people who are supporting the Barack Obama/Joe Biden ticket are doing so because they truly believe in it, while people who are supporting the John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket are doing so because they truly believe against its opposite.

Which is to say: it seems to me that the entire election, no matter how people are voting, is being determined by Barack Obama. Either people really like him and believe he can do the job well, or people really dislike him and don’t believe he can do it and so want to keep him from office at all costs.

I read a bit of the debate coverage. I was surprised it recorded higher viewership than the actual presidential debate. One of the reasons I’m rather indifferent here is that, well, No Contest 2008 is a presidential election. Too many people are forgetting that.

I dig Bill Maher, mostly. Like his stuff. I mean, he’s neither Eddie Izzard nor Jon Stewart, but I do appreciate both his candor and his challenge. I agree with him often, but often mostly in the sense that I agree with Jon Stewart: not in the sense that I’m lefty or liberal or whathaveyou, but more in the sense that I just find the whole system and process completely absurd, as well as many of the participants therein.

Because, seriously, I’m not sure I would have been able to hold back from striding onto that stage and, after McCain’s first response, looking the camera dead in its little electronic eye and saying:

“You’re serious? You’re really not sure whether to vote for this guy or for me? You’ve noticed he’s got a notebook full of letters three feet high because otherwise he can’t remember what he wants to say and they’re not big enough for him to see? You don’t see right through his pathetic ploys to dead soldiers, which he trots out during every media interview he engages in?

Look: I want to help you. I want to cut your taxes and get us through these difficult times. I’m a better candidate because I care about you.

I caught this article on Yahoo! concerning Barack Obama’s response to John McCain’s suggesting we postpone the presidential debate to, you know, focus on the economy.

That response? Here:

It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess.

My response was a little more abstract. It was:

“McCain wants to postpone the debate? You don’t say…”

Because, since the beginning, I’ve thought the debates would be one of the deciding factors in this election. Much like historians sometimes cite the very first televised presidential debates, back in 1960, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

It’s also why I’m voting for Obama. Not just that I think he could deliver a speech like that one, but because he just seems that honest. He seems like the kind of guy who would man up when required, the sort who would say, “You know, I thought this was a good idea, but I’ve reconsidered because it’s just politics as usual and it ain’t gonna work. I pledged to you that I would serve you well, and act in your best interest, and I think rejecting this bill is in your best interest.”

I can’t imagine McCain saying anything remotely similar. All I can imagine McCain saying is, “You know, the situation is complicated, and I have a lot of great advisors I lend credence to–”

(and as a sidenote: since when does ‘advisor’ contain an ‘e’? Is that a British thing, like ‘grey’ versus ‘gray’? Because spellcheck keeps underlining advisor and I keep thinking, ‘No, it’s not, in fact, adviser,’ and I don’t really listen because, come on, spellcheck underlines ‘spellcheck,’ which just seems silly)

Point is, this is the wire, and we’re down to it. You can either vote for an old man who thinks that things are fine and he can make them finer and his Caribou Barbie sidekick who’s a joke of a woman, much less political candidate, or you can vote for someone who’s going to bring the change we want to see in the world.

Gandhi said we must be the change we want to see in the world, and now I say we must vote for it.

The official version of the story seems to be that Palin’s water broke while she was in Texas, at which time she flew back home to Alaska to give birth to her youngest child. If she did so, I’m relatively certain she would have had to take a private jet; commercial airlines prohibit women more than 8 months pregnant from flying.

But let’s say they made an exception because she’s governess of Alaska.

Still, her oldest daughter, Bristol, had been removed from her school for 4 to 5 months already, with a “prolonged case of mono.”

I’m not convinced it’s true, but then, I’m not convinced it matters, either. I thought she was both batshit crazy and less than qualified for the gig before I heard any of the above rumors, and I still do. I think this whole back-and-forth argument between GOP supporters and McCain Democrats and PUMA supporters on one hand and Obama supporters on the other is silly, because I don’t think experience has very much to do with one’s ability to get a job done. Obama and Palin are, arguably, on equal level concerning experience, but Obama’s qualification vastly outpace Palin’s, and I think that’s what counts. Obama was the Illinois senator, and as such participated in national policy; Palin is governor of a state whose population is less than Brooklyn’s and may have participated in regional policy, there in Alaska, but isn’t Alaska a bit of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind state, anyway? People note it’s the largest, but Manhattan is more populous and impressive, no?

If it is true, however, I wonder if it plays into her anti-women’s rights beliefs. Keeping secret one’s daughter’s teenage pregnancy and then adopting the child as one’s own while actively concealing the entire thing seems somehow related to the “let’s all sweep sexuality under the rug, because the only real way to educate teenagers is to teach them abstinence. We won’t acknowledge sex education, we won’t dispense condoms to populations that might use them, and we will consistently teach that sex and its consequences are utterly shameful” belief system many fetus-rights activists seem to share.